Wednesday, March 30, 2011

major archaeological find in jordan?

British archaeologists are seeking to authenticate what could be a landmark discovery in the documentation of early Christianity: a trove of 70 lead codices that appear to date from the 1st century. Some researchers suggest this could be the most significant find in Christian archaeology since the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947.

The codices turned up five years ago in a remote cave in eastern Jordan—a region where early Christian believers may have fled after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The codices are made up of wirebound individual pages, each roughly the size of a credit card. They contain a number of images and textual allusions to the Messiah, as well as some possible references to the crucifixion and resurrection.

But the field of biblical archaeology is also prey to plenty of hoaxes and enterprising fraudsters, so investigators are proceeding with due caution. Initial research indicates that the codices are about 2,000 years old - based on the manner of corrosion they have undergone, which, "experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially."